Ken Douglas - Scorpion

“ Warren tried everything-counseling, doctors, shrinks-nothing seemed to help. So he threw himself into his business, built it up, sold it and bought property in the booming Southern California market. He made a fortune, but he still lived next door, in a fifty-year-old home on the edge of the barrio.

“ Then it happened. It was Dani’s eighteenth birthday and she was as glum as ever. I hadn’t seen her in a while, but I knew what day it was, so I went to the pet store and bought a collie puppy. I took it next door after dinner. That pup took one look at her, jumped in her lap, shook his little body like he’d just come in from the ocean and promptly pissed.

“ Warren and I watched in dumb amazement. Then Dani smiled, then she laughed and then the light came back into her eyes. It took three years and a collie puppy.

“ After that she threw herself into school. She majored in French, minored in business and studied Spanish and Japanese in her spare time. She managed her father’s successful Senate campaign before going into business and making a fortune in her own right.”

“ Senate campaign, as in the United States Senate?” Maria asked. She wanted to ask more about Dani, because something about her picture was familiar. She knew her from somewhere, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“ Yeah, the U.S. Senate. He went in 1980, a Democrat that squeaked through the Reagan landslide. One of the promises he made during his campaign was that he wouldn’t be a career politician. One term only, he promised. He turned control of his real estate empire over to Dani and spent six years on the business of the United States. Nobody could buy him, lobbyists were afraid of him, everybody respected him, because he didn’t take a dime. He had no campaign committee to feed, no exploratory committee for higher office to staff, no image to improve. When his six years were up he quit as one of the richest men in America.”

“ How’d he do that?”

“ While he was in office Dani sold all of his real estate and invested in some computer and software companies. Apple, IBM and Microsoft. She made him wealthy, but in his mind he’s still a poor boy from the wrong side of the tracks. He’ll never be anything but an aw shucks kind of guy. He couldn’t get used to all the money, so when the Democrats finally regained the White House and the President called, Warren went back into government. Three years later he had a heart attack. The doctors said rest, at least a year. But Warren couldn’t just lay about and do nothing. The president suggested an ambassadorship, somewhere where he could take it easy but still make a difference. Trinidad was the place. Warren gets a year’s rest with an easy job, then he’ll probably go back and help the president again.”

“ Wow, and that’s your girl’s father?”

“ That’s him.”

They were quiet for awhile, and she took the time to study the other passengers, some staring blankly forward, some lost in their own thoughts, some conversing softly, trying to forget that the plane was flying low and slow. She thought of Rick Nelson and wondered what it was like for him just before his plane plowed into that dark Midwestern ground. She imagined his pure sweet voice singing Hello, Mary Lou. She started singing, just above her breath. “Believe me girl, I just had no choice, wild horses couldn’t make me stay away, it’s all I had to see for me to say…”

“ Hey, hey, hey. Hello Mary Lou, goodbye heart,” he softly sang in answer.

“ I’m embarrassed,” she said.

“ I was thinking of Buddy Holly and Peggy Sue,” he said.

The plane lurched downward and she grabbed his hand without thinking. He felt good and kind and strong and she felt that nothing could go wrong just so long as she held on to him.

“ It’s all right,” the captain’s voice said. “We’re coming into Port of Spain. We should be on the ground in about fifteen minutes.”

Maria heard the landing gear coming down. It locked into place with a slam that sounded like another explosion and the plane jerked to the right again. The wing tipped, straining for the ground below. Someone screamed and Maria knew it wasn’t all right. Then the giant aircraft righted itself and she prayed they had it under control.

And for a few seconds they did. They were flying straight up, landing gear down. She let out a long sigh, and started to say that it looked like they were going to make it, when normal sound was erased by the tearing sound of metal. The sound rocketed through the plane, stealing the hopes and draining the dreams of all on board. Now the left wing tipped toward the ground and the nose arched upward for a second, then rocked to the left, following the wing. They were in an earthward bank, making a downward left turn.

She grabbed onto the hand that was still there and looked past the man sitting next to her and out the window, and all she saw was blue. But it wasn’t the blue of the cloud filled tropical sky, it was the blue of the ocean below.

The plane banked steeper into the turn. Maria was afraid that they were going to go into a spin, but they gradually eased out of the bank. She sighed again when the view turned from ocean back into sky and they were flying level once more.

“ Oh no,” she whimpered.

“ What?” Broxton said, and he turned to look too. “Shit,” he added.

She didn’t say anything, there was nothing to say. They were flying over Chaguaramas Bay, barely skimming over the tall masts of the sailing yachts anchored there. She saw the upturned faces on the boats below, saw the rolling waves as the plane blew out of the bay toward Casper Grande Island, level now, but still turning. She saw the Fantasy Island Resort on Casper Grande and she shivered, because she wasn’t looking down. A woman behind her screamed as the plane whisked by the tall trees. Then they were headed back out to sea, away from Trinidad, the ocean only feet below.

For fifteen minutes that seemed like forever, they flew low over the ocean as the plane made a wide turn, back toward Port of Spain. Maria held tightly to Broxton’s hand and stole a quick look around.

The elderly couple in the center seats across from them were locked in an embrace. The woman in the aisle seat behind was frantically writing in a pocket diary. Probably a goodbye to someone she loves, Maria thought, and for a second she thought about writing her mother a quick note. Just to say she loved her. She hadn’t said it in so long.

But she dropped the thought as the blue ocean disappeared and the green tropical jungle of the Caroni Swamp filled the window. They were skimming the trees and Maria knew they weren’t going to make it. She wondered what lived in the vast swamp below.

“ Bend down and grab your socks!” the captain’s voice screamed over the speaker system. “It might be a rough landing.”

“ He’s going for it,” Broxton said.

“ Good for him,” Maria said, but her thoughts were filled with gators and crocks and she wondered if sharks wouldn’t have been quicker.

Then she felt the plane crash into the ground with a shotgun sound. They seemed to be sliding out of control. She wanted to cry out, to scream at the cruel death only instants away. Then she realized they were rolling to a stop. They hadn’t crashed. They were on the runway. They were safe.

Someone started clapping, then someone else on the other side of the cabin clapped an echo back and she felt a blissful peace and uncanny joy take hold of her as she freed her hand from Broxton’s and joined the applause that filled the aircraft.

“ Ladies and gentlemen,” the captain’s voice broke out over the speakers. “Welcome to Port of Spain and thank you for your appreciation.”

The applause picked up and someone cheered. Then they were all cheering. The door to the cockpit opened and Captain Roger Herra stepped out followed by his copilot and the cheering increased to a deafening crescendo. Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped.